Gerrymandering should be thing of the past

Ticket-splitting seems to be the new order of the day in Southeastern Pennsylvania politics. That’s how Republican Pat Meehan managed to roll to a convincing win for a second term as our 7th District congressman. Same goes for Republican Jim Gerlach, who easily won re-election in the 6th Congressional District. In fact, Pennsylvania Republicans managed to pick up a House seat, giving them control of 13 of the state’s 18 Cogressional seats.

It’s even more impressive in light of what was happening in the suburban Philadelphia counties and the state. Democrats were rolling up some big wins behind President Barack Obama.

Consider that Obama carried the state by 5.2 points over Mitt Romney.

Sen. Bob Casey outdistanced GOP challenger Tom Smith by 9.1 percent.

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Democrat Kathleen Kane scorched Republican challenger David Freed by 14.5 points in the attorney general race, in the process becoming the first Democrat and first woman elected to the post.

Eugene DePasquale, a Democrat, won the race for the other AG in Pa. (auditor general) by 3.2 percent over his GOP opponent.

And Treasurer Rob McCord won handily over his Republican opponent — by 8.6 percent.

Basically it was a Democratic romp in statewide voting totals.

And yet Republicans were able to hold on to both houses of the state General Assembly, as well as a solid majority of congressional seats from Pennsylvania — 13 of 18.

Some have pointed out that Democratic Party candidates raked in nearly 76,000 more votes for Congress than Republicans statewide, but Republicans still won far more contests.

How’d they do that?

Well, the winning candidates would probably argue they ran good campaigns and took positions that resonated with voters — and in many cases that is true.

But it’s also true that the GOP legislative tally was aided considerably by the district maps — the ones that were redrawn this year as a result of the 2010 Census.

The ones that were debated and litigated ad nauseam.

And now we see why.

It’s because they matter.

Elections matter — especially ones for state Legislature because to the victors of those elections go the reapportionment spoils.

In the state General Assembly races, we basically saw the status quo this election because the badly gerrymandered redistricting maps were put on hold by the courts, and previous legislative districts were allowed to stand for one more election cycle.

But the congressional reapportionment went ahead.

And we see the results.

Democrats won far more votes in statewide contests — and even outpaced the GOP for the total number of votes for Congress — and yet the state’s Republican congressional delegation will dominate.

This phenomenon gives more ammunition to those who have called for reapportionment reform in Pennsylvania. One look at the pretzel-like shape twists and turns of the new reconstructed 7th District, which now runs from Delaware County all the way to Berks County, with a little slice of Montco throw in for good effort, will tell you what is at play here.

It’s time to move away from the old politicized smoke-filled room process, where, as the old cliché goes, politicians choose their voters rather than voters choosing their politicians.

The first reapportionment map, which was rejected by the courts, was appalling, with districts meandering hither and yon to create “safe seats” for incumbents.

The new map is slightly better, but it still too often defies routine geography.

Is this what we want? Or do we want districts that conform to actual communities, resulting in contests where voters have legitimate choices on the ballot?

The PoliticsPA website nicely summed up the dangers of the current system: “The real problem posed by gerrymandering is not that it helps or hurts Democrats or Republicans, it’s that it foments ideological extremism. If a district is uncompetitive in the general, members must instead look over their shoulders and vote so as to avoid a primary challenge.”

Changing the process is difficult, though, because it requires the party that currently has the upper hand to voluntarily agree to level the playing field. And make no mistake, if Democrats happened to hold power, they no doubt would to the same thing, bending and twisting districts to their advantage, and to help their candidates get re-elected.

The process known as gerrymandering has been around too long. It’s time to consign it to the same dust bin of history as other relics such as voters who blindly pull the party lever.